New Processes to Recycle Palm Oil Milling Waste Developed

A research team from Nottingham University’s Malaysia branch has developed two new process technologies to produce building materials and bioenergy from palm oil process waste. As the world’s second largest palm oil producer after Indonesia, Malaysia produced a massive amount of waste from its palm oil industry annually, including kernels and husks from pressed fruits, discarded branches, and wastewater mixed with organic matter known as palm oil mill effluent (POME), The Engineer reported.

To address the waste problem, the researchers developed a zero waste management system for palm oil mills, called the Integrated Waste Recovery and Regeneration System (REGEN). The system converted all solid biomass waste and POME from palm oil processing into building material and bioenergy, said professor Denny K S Ng from the Faculty of Engineering at Nottingham University Malaysia. 

In addition to REGEN, the team also developed what they called the Integrated Anaerobic-Aerobic Bioreactor (IAAB) to recycle POME, which as a raw effluent posed significant environmental risks and required extensive treatment before it could be released into the water cycle.  The IAAB process turned POME into water that could be reused in the palm oil milling process and that could be further purified into potable water, alongside digesting the organic matter in POME to create methane that could be harvested and further processed into biofuel.